


When the Dust Settles

by givemeunicorns



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Battle Boyfriends, M/M, Makeup, complicated feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 22:07:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18536416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/givemeunicorns/pseuds/givemeunicorns
Summary: Magnus hated it. He didn't want to be angry, but anger had always ridden the coattails of his grief, since he was a boy, the two emotions almost one and the same anymore. Alec had gotten him his magic back, filled up the emptiness inside him. But it didn't calm the storm inside him. He was beyond angry; a cold rage that burned to his bones. He wanted to shout. He wanted to break something. He wanted to kill his father over again. He wanted to rip out the part of him that had been too weak to get by without magic, that couldn't for once be satisfied. He couldn't just be content to love a man that loved him back. He wanted to tear his lonely, treacherous heart to shreds, to cut out feeling all together.





	When the Dust Settles

**Author's Note:**

> Magnus is such a great, complicated character and I wanted to write a makeup fic that also dealt with him getting to be messy and grieving and anger so yeah her you go!

     The dust was settling and they sat, side by side, on the steps of the Institute. The world was no longer on fire but there was ash everywhere. There were dead demons everywhere. The door to Hell was shut and the Prince of Edom was dead. Truly dead. And Magnus Bane found himself, once again, an orphan.

     He wasn't sure how the two of them had ended up here, fighting together, surviving together, then collapsing on the stairs, together. All Magnus knew was that the moment he'd seen Alec across the battlefield, the anger, the grief, the festering wound of memories he didn't want suddenly faded into the background. All that mattered was that Alec was in danger, and he had the power to help. He'd let loose a flare of magic from his hands and Alec isn't even startled, just turns shots an arrow into the demon looming on Magnus's left. There was a nod, and then they're moving again, together, in a familiar motion, as if they'd never been apart. As if Magnus's heart was shattered in pieces, as if he hadn't pleaded just yesterday with one of his oldest friends to take the memories he had of the man beside him. Now here they sat, so close Magnus could feel Alec's warmth, their fingers almost touching. Magnus could see the spot where they first said I love you, mere steps from where he was sprawled.

     “My magic is back,” the warlock breathed.

     Alec only nodded.

     “I know.”

     Magnus lifted his head, caught by something in the shadowhunters tone, in the lack of surprise, the lack of question. He looked at Alec, who was careful not to look at back at him, a confirmation of something he had not allowed himself to hope for.

     “You made a deal with him.”

      It wasn't a question, but when Alec lifted his head, there were tear tracks in the soot caked on his face that rang the answer loud and clear. He nodded again, once, quietly, looked back down at his hands, picking at the bloody red starbursts of his knuckles. It must hurt or he wouldn't be doing it. He always hurt himself when he was hurting inside. 

     “Why? Why didn't you tell me?” Magnus hissed, fingers clenching so tightly his own knuckles pop.

     “That was the deal. You get your magic back, if I break your heart. He said if I told you, he'd take it back,” Alec replied in a voice that was too small, too quiet. Contrite and defeated, "I couldn't let you go through that again."

     “That wasn't your choice to make Alexander,” Magnus snapped, his tone sharp as a knife's edge, sharp enough that Alec flinched.

    Magnus hated it. He didn't want to be angry, but anger had always ridden the coattails of his grief, since he was a boy, the two emotions almost one and the same anymore. Alec had gotten him his magic back, filled up the emptiness inside him. But it didn't calm the storm inside him. He was beyond angry; a cold rage that burned to his bones. He wanted to shout. He wanted to break something. He wanted to kill his father over again. He wanted to rip out the part of him that had been too weak to get by without magic, that couldn't for once be satisfied. He couldn't just be content to love a man that loved him back. He wanted to tear his lonely, treacherous heart to shreds, to cut out feeling all together. Alexander's loss had destroyed him, driven him that last few feet to rock bottom. When his father had come, he had found his son broken, he had made him plead, had made him beg, to be given his magic back. And Magnus had done it, on bended knee. With Alec, he could try to live without his magic, struggling maybe but living all the same. But he couldn't live without both. He knew that in his soul. His father had known it too, and he'd used the knowledge to break them both and Alec had let him.

     Alec sniffed, ran his filthy sleeve across his filthy face and caught Magnus's gaze for the first time. Magnus had spent life times learning to read people, the pain in Alec's eyes was like a blow. He didn't want to feel pity, he didn't want the urge to sweep Alec into his arms, to kiss his hair and tell him it would be alright. He didn't want the feeling of emptiness in his bones when he started back in the face of this beautiful wonderful man he loved and who'd loved him and destroyed him anyway. But there it was all the same, more emotions he didn't want, like the gnawing pain in his chest that felt like mourning his terrible father. 

     “You gave up a part of yourself to save my brother, so I could be whole. You made that choice for me, but without me. I begged you not to but you did it anyway. Because you're good. Because you always jump into the fire to protect the people you love. To protect me. But being stripped of your magic? It was killing you, Magnus. Don't try to tell me it wasn't. I was so afraid of losing you, for real, for good. So when Asmodeus gave me a way to make you whole, to give you a chance to outlive this, even if it meant that I didn't get to live it with you? Of course I said yes! How could I not?”

     “That it isn't fair, Alexander. You made a choice that wasn't your to make,” Magnus said, softer now, and lacking the conviction he felt in his heart, but god, he was tired and his throat ached from smoke and the torrent of everything boiling in his chest.

     “Don't you think I know that!,” Alec shouted, his hands reaching for Magnus, as if to shake him, or hug him maybe, but dropping short, thinking better of it, before curling in on himself again, “ Saying those _things_ to you, it was like being in a nightmare I couldn't wake up from. I see it in my head every time I close my eyes and it feels like my heart breaking again, every time. It was his price, the only one he would accept. I paid it because I love you. Because I will only ever love you, even if you're not mine anymore. I couldn't spend the rest of my life knowing that you had something fundamental stolen from you and you did it for me. That I couldn't stop you. That I couldn't help you. I hurt you, and for that I'm sorry. I so, so sorry. I am sorry I left you when you needed me most. I'm sorry that I broke your heart. But you have spent...centuries sacrificing yourself for other people. It was time someone did it for you, and that I'm for that I am not sorry. ”

     Magnus could only watch him in stunned silence for a moment.

     “I understand if you don't want to be with me anymore. I went behind your back. I lied to you and I hurt you. I left you when you needed me most. And regardless of my reasons, I used your past and your insecurities against you, and it was wrong. But I need you to know that I didn't do it for the reasons I said. I need you to know that, even without your magic, you were enough for me.”

     Carefully, Alec pulled a long chain out of his shirt and over his head, one Magnus had never seen before. But the ring that dangled on the end, that Magnus had seen before. A century ago, on the hand of Gideon Lightwood. Alec held it out, the ring balanced in his bloody palm and tipped it into Magnus's hands, still warm from where it had rested against Alec's skin.

     “It's for you. It was always for you,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

     “I don't understand Alexander...what are you saying...”

     “I was going ask you to marry me Magnus. To spent the rest of my life with me. Magic. No magic. High Warlock or not. I just want...wanted to be with you.”

     Shame hits Magnus like a blow, the familiar ghost of whiskey on his tongue.

     “That night...dinner on the roof? The night I showed up...,” he shook his head. He'd been so destroyed, losing everything. The ghosts that had driven him to the ledge of Blackfriar's over a century ago had come back to haunt him. But Alec, his arms wrapped around Magnus, speaking softley against his skin, asking for nothing more that for Magnus to let him hold him, had chased pushed them back. Not away, but far enough into the shadow for Magnus to face another day...

     Alec only nodded, his quietness felt like he was paying penance. Magnus felt the storm inside him blow out, leaving him feeling shaken up and hollow. 

     “I had everything planned. You're favorite meal, we were going to dance, I'd been practicing. I was going to give it to you after desert,” he said, his smile small and sad, fading almost as quickly as it had come, “ but you were hurting so badly. I knew, as badly as I wanted to marry you, it wasn't enough. I wouldn't be enough. I went the next night and spoke with Asmodeus through a conduit. It was the only deal he'd take: He'd restore your magic, but only if I broke your heart. So I said everything I could to make you never want to see me again, because I knew it was the only way I could trust myself not to tell you the truth. ”

     Magnus closed the distance between them without thinking. Alec startled, but didn't pull away, letting Magnus's fingers settle in their familiar place along his jaw, his own hands fisted at his sides, uncertain, not wanting to risk breaking the fragile thing between them. His mouth tasted like smoke and salt, and it was the sweetest thing Magnus has ever tasted. There was an ocean of hurt between them, and the anger and heart ache, but right now, it didn't matter. Because the man he loved was here beside him, because he loved him, loved him enough to throw away a lifetime of happiness so that Magnus could be whole. It wasn't the sort of sacrifice anyone, living or dead, had ever made for him, one he's never thought himself worthy of.

    “Touch me Alexander,” he breathed against the shadowhunter's mouth, “please.I need to know you're real.”

     Alec obeyed, his arms wrapping around Magnus in an almost crushing grip, his fingers fisting in the warlock's torn jacket, his mouth finding Magnus's again in near desperation. The kiss was harsh, and hurried and bordering on brutal. It wasn't the sort of kiss they'd ever shared before, all sharp edges and raging emotions, their bodies strung out and shaking from battle, both inside and out. They broke apart for breath but Magnus kept his shadowhunter close, their foreheads pressed together.

     “Do not think for a single second, that you are not enough for me,” he said against Alec's lips, thumbs brushing the tears from the younger man's face, while Alec's hand came up to do the same for Magnus, “You hurt me and I hurt you, and we need to figure that out. It won't be easy, and i know that. But never, ever think for a moment that I don't love you. More than my magic. More than my life. More than I have ever loved anything in my long life. No one gets take that love away from me. Not even you.”

     Alec nodded, his smile bright as sunshine, and he leaned heavily into the touch of Magnus' palm on his cheek.

      Magnus pulled back just long enough to slip the ring on it's chain around his neck.

     “I'll be keeping this until such a time as we can have that perfect dinner you wanted.”

     Alec's smile is brilliant despite the exhaustion etched in every line of his body.

     “Is that a yes then?”

     Magnus plays the ring between his fingers, the way the light catches the ancient silver, imagining what it would look like on his finger.

     “I have it on good authority that you look very good in gold, so it's a point in your favor.”

     Alec's laugh, small and tired and pressed against the curve of Magnus's neck is the sweetest sound he's ever heard.


End file.
